Art, Symptoms and Sonnet

Art of Courtly Love

By: Andreas Capellanus

            I absolutely loved this piece of work. It talks all about love as a game with rules and deceit; I loved that because in the subconscious mind, I believe that is how love really works sometimes, at least untrue love. The first quote I really like from this passage was when it talked about the effect of love. “Love makes an ugly and rude person shine with all beauty . . . it can even lead humility to the proud; he who loves is accustomed humbly to serve others. Oh, what a marvelous thing is love, which makes a man shine with so many virtues and which teaches everyone to abound in good customs . . .” (pg. 299) I loved this quote because it shows how love is kind of mask. Love can change a person for a short period of time because it’s such a powerful emotion but the mask always fades away and true colors shine through. The second part of this passage that I absolutely loved and majorly connected to was the second rule of love: “He who is not jealous cannot love.” (pg. 301) I have a boyfriend who is crazy jealous. He has toned it down quite a bit because I used to get so mad at him and I guess this helped me see where he is coming from. Ya him getting jealous is extremely annoying, but it comes because he loves me and cares about me so much which is adorable.

                                           Symptoms of Love

By: Robert Graves

            Robert Graves is explaining love as almost a curse I think. He states “Could you endure such grief at any hand but hers?” (pg. 318) This to me means, could you endure the negative emotions that come from love like jealousy, hurt, longing, etc. from anyone else but your true love? She is the one making him feel those bad emotions, she is trapping him with the good and bad sides of love, but she is also the one making those emotions worth it. Love is painful and hard so you need to find someone who makes you happy enough to endure it; he/she has to be worth the pain and longing.

                                    Sonnet: Love Is Not All

By: Edna St. Vincent Millay

            Love cannot work miracles. “Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone.” (pg. 320) This poem is about how men are willing die without love even though love is not what would keep them alive. I agree that it is foolish to think that love is needed to survive, because that is physically and scientifically able to be proved false, but still even with that knowledge I would choose to die before living a life without love.